when the story ends [esme/simon | jb]

arx!!
Retired Staff

2,484 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Nov 15, 2024 1:49:42 GMT -5

literally so gay, doing so many crimes

when the story ends [esme/simon | jb] May 30, 2015 23:41:46 GMT -5

Post by arx!! on May 30, 2015 23:41:46 GMT -5

When I was 5 years old, I was obsessed with my mother's ponytail. I know it sounds odd, but whenever she would hold me or pick me up, my arms would naturally wrap around her neck, finding the soft, silky hair that dangled there despite it being tied up. I would kiss it goodnight like it had feels, the kiss my Mom goodnight, and scurry off to bed. Mom told me when I was older that when she had her hair down I would ask where the ponytail went. She would tell me a different story every time I asked. I mean, this ponytail went on the most daring, dangerous, and thrilling adventures.

Mom always insisted that my first love was her ponytail, no matter how profusely I tried to deny it.

At the same time I remember having this huge crush on a girl at school when I was 9 years old. We wrote stupid notes to each other and sometimes she let me hold her hand when we walked home from school. I don't remember her name, and maybe that's terrible of me, but I do remember that her favorite color was purple and she stickers. The day I managed to steal a whole sticker book from one of my sister's was the day she kissed me on the cheek in front of the whole class on the last day of school. I ran away. And I haven't seen her since.

This is the crush that all my friends and siblings used to tease me about and the one I would call my first love if only to avoid having my first love being Mom's hair.

Then there is of course that crush that you have during your early teens that they know, somewhere, deep down, is never going to happen but teenage hormones rage on anyway and the crush continues for longer than it should. When I was 13 years old Saffron Lowe won the Games. I think maybe that crush lasted for a solid two years. I kept telling myself that I would meet her, get to shake her hand, sweep her off her feet or whatever. I think I even once said that I would volunteer if it meant I could be with her. I think I got grounded for a week for that. I grew out of it eventually, and ultimately regret ever fawning over someone I don't even know.

This is the crush that you remember and ultimately regret. But it felt like the most real relationship I had had, yet it was the one that didn't even exist.

I sit alone, waiting. It isn't silent - I can hear some shuffling feet, some deep voices outside the door. But I'm trapped inside my own head, tripping over my racing thoughts. If I ran now could I make it? What if Peter Pan came through the window right this instant and sprinkled pixie dust over me and I could just soar off into the sky? Could I be having a nightmare? Is this--- Is this because I killed my sister? I should've visited her grave. I should've apologized to my parents. I just thought---

I run my thumb over the outline of the ring in my pocket. I just thought maybe this once I could have my happy ending.

Just after my 18th birthday I met this girl. She knew my name and I knew her's yet we had never spoken before. She didn't wear shoes because she felt more alive with her feet on the ground. She didn't seem to mind that I was a total idiot, she took me up on an offer to dance without hesitation. Her lips tasted like fresh air and her smile sort of does this thing where it lights up the world - at least when she dares to smile.

She might be one of the kindest human beings in all of Panem. She forgives my sins and I forgive her's. I pulled glass out of her feet, which oddly enough are still just as quirk-ily beautiful as the day I met her. She yells at me when I deserve it, doesn't pull away when I yell back. Believes in me. She talks me out of being stupid, being mad, being stupid. She loves our secret ocean just as much as I do. Doesn't mind that I named a boat after her. She is smart. Fun. Fun-ny. Quirky in a way that's cute. Unbelievably stubborn. She drives me to insanity and as far as I can tell I drive her there too. She's beautiful. And not just on the surface but within too.

In every one of my possible futures she is right there beside me. She's holding my hand. She's laying beside me. She's sitting on the shore with me. Taking long walks, watching the sunset, watching the sunrise, watching me fail at cooking anything but apple pies. Reading to me, whispering in my ear. Meeting my parents, holding me when I can't handle that. Smiling at me. She's enduring all my mood swings and waiting patiently (and sometimes irritably) for me to just calm down. I saw myself kneeling before her and asking her if she would marry me. I listened to her say, "Yes," a thousand times in my head. She told me she loved me. And I wasn't even a little afraid to say it back.

Esmeralda Legacy Ayres.

She's the one. And that's as much of an explanation as I can offer.

I saw it all.

And now I see none of it.

The door opens and slowly get to my feet staring at my feet. I know who it is without looking. Do I look anyway? Do I--- What do I do?

I look up and force a smile. I was so close.

The only word I can choke out is, "Hey."

Simon Karnes

“Men in rage strike those that wish them best.”

"I run on the road, long before I dance under the lights."

cass
Retired Staff

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last seen Oct 24, 2021 18:11:43 GMT -5

when the story ends [esme/simon | jb] May 31, 2015 3:29:12 GMT -5

Post by cass on May 31, 2015 3:29:12 GMT -5

e s m e r a l d a.

In my entire life I have never seen an angel, but the devil has poked his head into my life a million times over. This time he came in the form of two words, this time he came in the form of a name that's called out and into the open air. It felt as if I am standing on ice and as those two words reach me the ice shatters into a million pieces. For a moment I'm lost in the space between the darkness below my feet and the edge of reality. It's like that day, that day that man came into our house and he killed my parents. It reminds me of their echoing screams, the way Mother said to run and hide, the way Father tried to protect her. His name on that escorts lips sounds exactly like a dying scream, like the end. The way Father looked at mother, before whispering out 'I love', when the man wouldn't allow him to finish.

I tried to run to him, I tried so hard to push my way through the crowd, his name on my lips, but filled with fear and shock and love, not death. That was how his name should sound, not like a signature on a death certificate, not like a thing slice of hope. They couldn't take my Simon, the couldn't. He promised he'd be by my side, he'd promised he'd never hurt me. But oh, it was already hurting, like a swift kick to the stomach.

No one let me past and before I knew it he was being turned away and I was screaming out his name, screaming, but nothing would come out, the air in my lungs having escaped me, the world tipping and spinning. Gasping I slipped to my knees, hands trembling on the ground before me. No, no, no, no, no.

I can't seem to get any air into my mouth, I can't get it to work, my heart races, madly thumping against my ribs to the point where it hurts. Black dots dance across my vision, tugging me, trying to drag me under as well. With wide eyes I turn my head upwards, the crowd has begun to thin, making their way back to their homes because they're safe. For another year their child will not die, some of them smile, most of them embrace one another, I hear a laugh here and there that is quickly cut off. A few people throw me pitiful looks, their eyes glowing with sympathy as if they understood.

Somehow I managed to get to my feet, somehow I managed to stumble up the stairs and towards the justice building. Before I met Simon I had never been in love, before my parents died I'd had that childish call of love where you hugged your soft toys or patted a cat and proclaimed your undying resolve to be by their sides forever. But instead the rest of my childhood was stolen from me, there was no crushes, no boy to giggle with, no hand holding. There was nothing, then all at once under the moonlight, in the shadows of my favourite tree there was Simon Karnes. Before I knew it my entire world had been changed, there was a light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel.

I didn't knock, I didn't need to. The shaking in my hands was too obvious, and even as I reach to the handle and pull it down I cannot stop it. My heart echoed in my ears, and my chest ached, he's going to be standing there, and as I open the door he is. He's standing there, and he looked at me with those dark eyes and a forced smile and he choked out, "hey."

I'm broken, we both knew that, before I could see anything my feet were moving towards him, falling onto him, tears brimming my eyes. "This can't be it. I want to spend forever with you, not just this. Simon, please don't make this the end." I sobbed, hands clutching his shirt as tightly as I can. He thinks I am the strongest person he knows, but I'm not. I'm weak, I'm so incredibly weak. He's what makes me strong, he's what holds me together, and if he leaves I'll be as broken and lost as I was before.

"I need you."

ooc -- can we just forgive the changes between tenses, i just can't atm ??